Category: Miscellaneous

My brother sent me this great article from the New York Times Money section. Written by Ron Lieber and published on July 9, 2010, you can click here for the entire article. It’s a nicely done article when kids ask the darndest questions:

How Much Do You Make?
Are We Rich? Are We Poor?
Why Don’t We Have (fill in the blank…)? Summer Home? 2nd Car?

Fangs! is an appealing non-fiction series for preschoolers through 1st graders, particularly for reluctant young boy readers. The text is larger than most books and is composed in short sentences, usually about 3.

I’d describe The Dark is Rising series as a mix of Tolkein (Lord of the Rings series) and Lloyd Alexander (The Black Caldron series) with difficulty level between the two series. Also, I’d describe it as mix of Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, again with difficulty level between the two series. It’s an epic series pitting good versus evil and light against dark with the epicenter around an 11-year-old boy named Will Stanton who is the last of the six “The Old Ones” who are time-travelers and protectors of the world. The time traveling aspect is great because it introduces English history amidst a backdrop Celtic lore.

iPhone/iPad app, Piffle’s ABC Book of Funny Animals, by Once Upon an App is a sweet ABC ebook with that rhymes, teaches the ABCs interactively, and is sung in an engaging and silly way that preschoolers adore.

This is what I learned from Planet Earth, Our Extraordinary World Up Close! by Matthew Murrie and Steve Murrie:
-The black ink the octopus sprays in the face of pursuers is believed to disrupt their sense of smell.
– One Dugong can devour a bed of seagrass the size of a soccer field in one day!

What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell is an award winning young adult novel (National Book Award Winner, A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year and An ALA Best Book for Young Adults) is a coming of age novel that oozes with “Mad Men” glamor and ambiance.

eBook, The Crystal Mountain, by Ruth Sanderson for ages 6-10. Sanderson combines folk tales from China and Norway in this lushly illustrated book. This is the perfect eBook for reluctant readers as it can be treated as a portable “book on tape” with rich language and gorgeous illustrations.